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We have selected the best introductory textbooks for high-school students, undergraduates, autodidacts and lifelong learning.

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Psychedelics
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From Chocolate to Morphine

Author: Dr. Andrew Weil, Winifred Rosen
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin, 2004, 304pp, 1st ed.

From Chocolate to Morphine is the definitive guide to drugs and drug use from one of America's most respected and best-known doctors. This enormously popular book — the best and most authoritative resource for unbiased information about how drugs affect the mind and the body — covers a wide range of available substances, from coffee to marijuana, antihistamines to psychedelics, steroids to smart drugs, and discusses likely effects, precautions, and alternatives.
Psychedelics
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Psychedelics Encyclopedia

Author: Peter G. Stafford
Publisher: Ronin Publishing, 1993, 420pp, 3rd ed.

Psychedelic drugs have been disparaged, exalted, politicized, romanticized, and outlawed. This extraordinary volume covers the history of their development and the controversies surrounding them, including the important role played by such figures as Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon, and the CIA in politicizing their use. ? ? For LSD, peyote, marijuana, and a variety of drugs both natural and manufactured, the history, botany, chemistry, form of preparation, and distinct mental and physical effect on the user are detailed. Wisely, this book neither defends nor denigrates the use of these substances but presents well-organized and thoroughly researched information on a controversial subject.
Psychedelics
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Acid Dreams - The Complete Social History of LSD

Author: Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain, Andrei Codrescu
Publisher: Grove, 1994, 345pp, 1st ed.

Acid Dreams is the complete social history of LSD and the counterculture it helped to define in the sixties. Here LSD had a profound impact and helped spawn a political and social upheaval that changed the face of America. From the clandestine operations of the government to the escapades of Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman, Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, Allen Ginsberg, and many others, Acid Dreams provides an important and entertaining account that goes to the heart of a turbulent period in American history.
Psychedelics
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Ecstasy - The Complete Guide

Author: Julie Holland
Publisher: Park Street Press, 2001, 464pp, 1st ed.

MDMA is a unique compound with great potential for positive use. This is the most complete book about it, with much information to help people realize that potential as well as reduce any possible harm.
Psychedelics
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Plants of the Gods - Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers

Author: Richard Evans Schultes, Albert Hofmann
Publisher: Healing Arts Press, 2001, 208pp, 2nd ed.

This superbly illustrated, encyclopedic volume provides a much needed, well-balanced scientific perspective on the use of hallucinogenic plants. Richard Evans Schultes, the worlds most eminent ethnobotanist, and Albert Hofmann, the former research director at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, emphasize the need for continued education about both the potential benefits and the inherent dangers involved in the use of hallucinogens.
Psychedelics
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The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants

Author: Christian Rätsch
Publisher: Park Street Press, 2005, 944pp, 1st ed.

In the traditions of every culture, plants have been highly valued for their nourishing, healing, and transformative properties. The most powerful plants--those known to transport the human mind into other dimensions of consciousness--have traditionally been regarded as sacred. In The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants Christian Ratsch details the botany, history, distribution, cultivation, and preparation and dosage of more than 400 psychoactive plants. He discusses their ritual and medicinal usage, cultural artifacts made from these plants, and works of art that either represent or have been inspired by them.
Psychedelics
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LSD - Doorway to the Numinous

Author: Stanislav Grof M.D.
Publisher: Park Street Press, 2009, 304pp, 1st ed.

Stanislav Grof's first 17 years of research into nonordinary states of consciousness induced by LSD and other psychedelics led to a revolutionary understanding of the human psyche. His research was the impetus behind a vastly expanded cartography of the unconscious, including two new realms still unacknowledged by official academic circles--the perinatal domain, which holds memories of the various stages of birth, and the transpersonal domain, which mediates experiential identification with other species and mythic figures, visits to archetypal realms, access to past life memories, and union with the cosmic creative principle.
Psychedelics
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Prometheus Rising

Author: Robert Anton Wilson
Publisher: New Falcon, 1992, 288pp, 1st ed.

Imagine trying to make sense of an amalgam of Timothy Leary's eight neurological circuits, G.I. Gurdjieff's self-observation exercises, Alfred Korzybskis general semantics, Aleister Crowley's magical theorems, and the several disciplines of Yoga; not to mention Christian Science, relativity, quantum mechanics, and many other approaches to understanding the world around us! That is exactly what Robert Anton Wilson does in Prometheus Rising. In short, this is a book about how the human mind works and what you can do to make the most of yours. The meaning of this book is not found anywhere in the words on the page, it solely lies in how those words influence your methods of thinking.
Psychedelics
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LSD

Author: Otto Snow
Publisher: Thoth Press, 2003, 246pp, 1st ed.

Otto Snow's "LSD" is the most comprehensive book ever written on the synthesis of LSD. Otto includes the reactions and the chemistry behind the reactions. LSD is written by someone who has been there and knows the subject/chemistry first hand. LSD is as popular today as it was in the 1970s and 1960s. For many it is a party drug, for others it is a medication. The Decade of the Brain heralded in a new interest in psychedelics and their medical application.